How They Shut It Down

Here’s a really good rundown on inside the protest that shut down the Trump rally in Chicago.

“If you want to leave, y’all can do that,” Lewis told the woman at his side, leaning in close so she could hear him. While he felt comfortable promising that she wouldn’t get punched, he could not assure her that they wouldn’t get arrested. “We will be escorted out of here,” he told her.

The plan was straightforward. Once Trump began speaking, Lewis would begin sending messages to the groups around the hall—and, so prompted, they would each stand up, chanting, and disrupt the speech. It would then build to a crescendo: right there, in front of Trump’s podium. Lewis and the other protesters in front were going to link up—“arm in arm,” he instructed the students around him—and make their presence known in a silent, but conspicuous, circle. “It will speak louder,” Lewis said, “than anybody who interrupts Trump’s speeches.”

They never got that chance. Just after 6:30 p.m. on Friday, a Trump official appeared on stage and abruptly told the crowd that the event was off. Trump would not be appearing. The crowd was shocked; the protesters spontaneously erupted in cheers. The official cited “safety” concerns, though both Chicago law enforcement and university police said they had reported none. In the coming hours, Trump would appear on television, calling the cancellation a “wise decision,” given the threat of what might have happened. “I don’t want to see anybody getting hurt,” he would tell CNN. On Twitter, he would blame “an organized group of people, many of them thugs” for what happened in Chicago, and assert that Bernie Sanders’ campaign had orchestrated the protesters. Protesters themselves – and even Trump’s GOP rivals – would denounce Trump for fomenting the violence that has flared at his rallies with increasing frequency over recent days, leading up to Friday night’s dramatic cancellation – the single most electric moment for the growing anti-Trump protest movement.

“Please go in peace,” the official told the crowd from the stage Friday night.

And that was the exact moment when the violence began, pitting Trump supporters against protesters, whites against blacks. An event—teetering on the edge until that moment, but still calm—devolved quickly into an angry scrum, and Lewis and his fellow students found themselves in the middle of it. They were standing near the podium where the candidate would not be appearing—with an increasingly angry crowd around them that knew exactly who had prevented Donald Trump from showing up.